Agricultural equipment, such as granular and liquid applicators, planters, and harvesters, often make use of electronic control systems to manage product application rates and monitor yield based on location coordinates, e.g., coordinates provided by a GPS receiver (also referred to herein as “GPS coordinates”). These systems can include an application specific computer (often referred to as a “field computer”) coupled with a control module. The field computer can provided the user interface and data management while the control module can interface to systems of the agricultural equipment. These two parts can be aggregated into a single, physical unit or be configured as separate and distinct physical units.
Among other tasks, a field computer often can record application and/or yield data associated with GPS coordinates. This information can be used for a number of purposes including tracking profitability of a field or portion(s) thereof, as inputs for future application rates, and for application records compliance. A field computer can also make use of prescription maps to apply product at different rates based on GPS coordinates and is capable if sharing agricultural data such as field boundaries and navigation guidance lines.
In many of these tasks, data can be exchanged between the field computer and one or more outside sources. This data typically originates and terminates from a specialized software application running on a general purpose computer. There are a number of companies that provide this specialized software. Some of these companies make field computers and provide an integrated system from the field computer to the specialized software while others may provide only software. In either cases, getting data from the field computer to remote storage to allow these software programs to operate on them can be challenging and costly.
Two methods have seen commonly used to transfer this data between a field computer and remote storage. First, the data files are manually copied from the field computer to a removable media such as a USB drive. The removable media is then plugged into a general-purpose computer, which can upload the data files to remote storage via the Internet. This method requires significant user intervention and the user may not have ready access to a general-purpose computer capable of uploading the data files.
Second, a field computer can be connected to the Internet via a cellular modem and can be configured to send the data files to cloud storage associated with the field computer manufacturer. Operation of this method requires availability of a cellular network in the field—not a given in many rural, agricultural areas of the world, even in North America. This method is further restricted in that a given manufacturer only transfers data between its own field computers and its own proprietary storage (or other specifically-supported storage), possibly in a proprietary or processed (non-raw) format. This effectively locks in users to that manufacturer's total solution regardless of the capabilities of the individual components. This lack of access can be a particular problem for users (e.g., farmers) who either own or wish to own a mixed fleet of equipment from manufacturers using different formats, or who wish to use raw data for processing by a third party (e.g., a chemical supplier or agronomist).
Although the preceding examples are in the agricultural field, it is believed that the above-described problems of intermittent connectivity and multi-manufacturer compatibility between a plurality of mobile computing devices and remote data storage exist in many other fields.
Thus, there may be a need to address at least some of the inadequacies, issues, and/or concerns with existing data interface and interchange techniques described above. In particular, there is a need for technological solutions to improve the function of computer and communication systems used in agricultural applications.